Bookish Gardener

For P.

The King of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am his,
and he is mine for ever.

Where streams of living water flow,
my ransomed soul he leadeth,
and where the verdant pastures grow,
with food celestial feedeth.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
but yet in love He sought me,
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me.

In death's dark vale I fear no ill
with thee, dear Lord, beside me;
thy rod and staff my comfort still,
thy cross before to guide me.

Thou spread'st a table in my sight;
thy unction grace bestoweth;
and O what transport of delight
from thy pure chalice floweth!

And so through all the length of days
thy goodness faileth never:
Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise
within thy house for ever.

Henry Williams Baker

Goodbye, gardening friend.

Driving while

Flashing lights from an unmarked black sedan; sudden short blare of a siren out of nowhere. I pull over, but the police car doesn't move on. Those lights, for me? For me?

I'd been tooling along John Nolen Drive, lost in Ligeti's propulsive first Étude. Is that what it was about the throbbing blue Beetle, swimming along in a sea of cars going just as fast, that asked for special attention?

I was still befuddled as I waited for the patrolman to walk over. The soundtrack moved to the questioning, ethereal strains of the second Étude. It had been so long since my last (and first) speeding ticket at age nineteen (for those keeping count, this would have been during the Carter administration), that I did not know that the Socratic method is now employed to enforce moving violations: P: Do you know why I pulled you over? C: [Racks brain. Brake light out? I just put the new license sticker on last month. Jumped the gun on the green light? What? What? What?] I'm sorry, officer. I don't know. P: Do you know what the speed limit is? C: [Heart sinks. Uh, oh. This is not a friendly stop. And I have no clue what the speed limit is.] I'm sorry, officer. I don't know. P: Do you know how fast you were going? C: [Well, I was keeping up with traffic. What that translates into as a number...I have no clue.] I'm sorry, officer. I don't know.

Busted! For the failure to keep under 35 miles per hour on an 8 lane boulevard that feeds into the freeway. The portentous, ominous finger-drumming of the third Étude wound tighter and tighter as I waited for the patrolman to weigh my fate and render his verdict. It seemed like forever, but he finally returned from his vehicle with, sigh, a ticket. I accepted it, meekly embarrassed, while the fourth Étude played on in a right hand-left hand colloquy of all the things that I imagined I could have said:

- "You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh and go slow!" (But then, I didn't have Beethoven's Seventh in the CD changer, and I'm no Oscar Levant.)

- "I was in a rush to get to my daughter's middle school to pick her up from the nurse's office!" (This was true, but inaccurate as to the connection between my state of mind and my foot of lead.)

- Last ditch musical plea:
"I've been having a bad, bad day /
Oh won't you put that pad away /
I'm asking you please /
Noooo...it isn't right, it isn't fair..."

And so, our business wrapped up, the music moved to the fifth Étude, the soundtrack to the dejected retreat of the loser, as I waited for an ebb in the mass of cars whizzing past at 65 miles per hour to ease back on the road. When you next see a downcast blue Beetle, stolidly hugging the speed limit while traffic backs up behind it, that'll be me.

Snowdrop

Photo credit: Jessamyn Roll

There is a time when nature seems to make
A stern determination not to wake;
When the snows melt, and swollen streams run deep,
And plashy pools the sere brown herbage steep;
When first the snowdrop dares the storm endure,
The only thing on earth which then looks pure...

from "The Sons of the Soil: A Poem," Sarah Stickney Ellis

Abutilon

A sight for winter-weary eyes: the first blooms ever from this indoor abutilon (or "flowering maple" or "velvet leaf"). I've had this plant for almost four years, and it put up with being stuck in a small neglected pot on the mantelpiece with no direct natural light to speak of for its first three years.  I repotted it last summer, then almost killed it by putting it outside without observing the niceties and necessities of hardening it off, but it came back better than ever (after, gulp, dropping all its leaves), and now, as it's overwintering right in front of the south-facing patio doors, has set numerous buds. The photo washes out the depth of the color, which is a hue all its own. It's a kind of apricot, but not too yellow and not too orange...I'd say it's most like the color of mango kulfi. How do I love this plant? Let me count the ways: it's a member of my favorite plant family, Malvaceae; its foliage is faithful to its common names, being, yes, softer than velvet and maple-leaf shaped, and is delicately stippled in yellow and chartreuse across fresh green. The blooms are exactly what I need right now, in the orange range of the color wheel (the irresistible complement to my favorite color, blue), and so today you'll find this abutilon surrounded by a potted primula (blooming orange) and pocketbook plant (blooming orange), impulse buys from the garden shop. To know that I will be able to see this color in late February in years to come is a morsel of hope to store away for next winter's gloomy days. More hope: a thumb's-length of new green daffodil foliage next to the south foundation (now temporarily buried under four inches of fresh snow). Ah, spring will come.